In Azure DevOps, how can I automatically move a Work Item from State to State?

Question

I have linked a branch to a Task. I want the following to happen automatically:

• Move the Task from To Do to In Progress when I push the first commit of that branch
• Move the Task from In Progress to Done when that branch is merged in Main

Answer 1

The closest feature available in Azure DevOps is the ability to move work items to a particular state based on the content of your commit message.

For example, if you want to move work items to "In Progress" or "Done" you would include something like this in your commit message:

In Progress: #1234
Done: #2345

However, Azure DevOps only supports this when a commit is merged. It won't work for your first use case.

Here's Microsoft's documentation on the feature:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/devops/release-notes/2020/sprint-176-update#customize-work-item-state-when-pull-request-is-merged